WWE Champ Cody Rhodes Reflects On Notorious Chair Spot Taken During AEW Run

During his time as part of AEW, Cody Rhodes went above and beyond to put the company he helped found on the map. He went through flaming tables, did moonsaults of steel cages, and on the company's second-ever show, he took an unprotected chair shot to the head from now current WWE Superstar Shawn Spears.

Not only was the move controversial because of the knowledge of concussions and CTE that is well known in today's world, but because the shot went wrong as Rhodes had a large cut on the back of his head for which he still has a scar from to this day. Rhodes was asked about chair shots by actor Timothée Chalamet during a recent episode of "What Do You Wanna Talk About?" podcast, who detailed how the spot came to be.

"Chris Evans is hitting people in the head with the shield as Captain America you know? Why can't we? We're also entertainment, we've said we're entertainment, so in my efforts to do a chair shot to the head, this was when I was away from here, I said 'Let's do it safely. Let's shave the chair down, shave it down' So the metal in a chair, it's a real chair, sandpaper that chair, it'll be just like a cookie sheet...What I realized in that moment, because we do it, I get hit in the head...the cookie sheet part worked, but I gave him the old 'Swing for the fences.' I could tell he is like 'Okay sure.' The hands are down, hits me, sandpaper part worked. the part that didn't work was the giant bar at the lip of the chair, the seat wraps around, there's a scar all the way that's around the back of my head."

Following this, AEW wouldn't have any unprotected chair shots to the head until many years later where Jack Perry was hit by Mark Briscoe during the 2024 Blood and Guts match, and Hangman Page won his Lights Out Unsanctioned Steel Cage match with Swerve Strickland at All Out 2024 with a chair shot to the head.

In the immediate aftermath of Spears hitting him, Cody's wife Brandi, who was an on-screen character at the time, was meant to sell the chair shot and be scared of Spears. However, given that a large pool of blood started to form from the back of her husband's head, Cody knew she wasn't happy.

"I can tell she's just furious, and she's just mad because now I'm busted open, laying there after doing this stupid stunt, and we're not in the narrative anymore. We're not in the fiction, she's just furious with Shawn Spears. Furious with me. Swing for the fences is the dumbest thing you could tell another wrestler–he was fine, he did nothing wrong. But the big thing I noticed is it wasn't about whether the chair is real, whether the chair is not, it was about the optics of hitting one another in the head and what they've meant for concussions."

Rhodes explained that he is all for having a little bit of grit and violence in his wrestling as that was he was brought up with given what his father, "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, did in his own career. However, doing something as dangerous as that for the sake of a moment can often take away the efforts two performers have put into a match as the only thing the fans will be talking about is the chair shot. 

The Undisputed WWE Champion also stated that it's a good thing that WWE holds itself to the highest standards when it comes to the safety of wrestlers because it prevents them from doing things like taking chair shots to the head. Rhodes rounded off by telling Chalamet that he would rather go through 55 tables, get hit with 20 Singapore canes, and roll around in thumbtacks than take another chair shot to the head as you can't take one and protect yourself convincingly. 

Please credit "What Do You Wanna Talk About?" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.